ROCKLAND – Abington High baseball coach Steve Perakslis reached into the deck and pulled out an ace.

Senior right-hander Matt Whalen improved his record to 6-1, holding Rockland to four hits, including two infield hits, over 71/3 innings as the Green Wave made two eighth-inning runs stand up for a 4-2 extra-inning victory Monday night.

The 10th win of the season puts 10-5 Abington into the South Sectional Tournament for the 12th time in the past 13 seasons.

“We’ve been playing a lot of games like this all season,” Perakslis said. “They’ve been close games and that will get us ready for the tournament when all the games are like this.

“Matt Whalen kept us in this game and he didn’t have his good stuff tonight. He battled and kept Rockland off balance. They scored twice (one unearned) so his earned-run average, which was under one, will go up.”

It looked like Whalen was going to get a complete-game 2-1 win until Rockland tied the game with two outs in the bottom of the seventh inning. Mike Leavitt reached on an infield error with one out and Dennis McPeck sacrificed him to second, making the second out of the inning.

Perakslis ordered No. 3 hitter Matt Nicholson walked intentionally, putting the potential winning run on base. Senior Joe Turner dumped a single into left field, scoring Leavitt and sending Nicholson to third, but Whelan got a ground ball to short to end the inning.

“Steve (Perakslis) had Matt on his AAU team that went to Myrtle Beach (S.C.) about three years ago and Matt hit a walk-off homer to win a game,” Rockland coach Nick Liquori said. “He knew what Matt is capable of and I wasn’t surprised by the intentional walk. Matt has a few of them this season.”

Earlier, Nicholson flied to deep center field at Rockland Stadium, the longest hit ball of the game.

A year ago, Whalen had an elbow issue that limited his pitching, so this is his first complete varsity season on the mound. He struck out six and walked five, leaving after giving up back-to-back walks with one out in the eighth.

“Usually, I’m a lot more accurate and on top of first-pitch strikes,” Whalen said. “The mound here is higher and it was difficult to find the grade. We have a great defense behind us (pitchers), so we just have to throw strikes and let the defense do the rest.

“It was very aggravating not to throw more strikes, but the coaches have told me about mound presence and I kept my composure.”

With Nicholson in his third inning of relief for Rockland (6-8), Abington broke the 2-2 tie when Brian Dwyer led off the eighth with a single to center and Jake Quinlan doubled over the left fielder’s head, scoring Dwyer. Whalen made it second and third, reaching on a sacrifice bunt attempt that turned into a hit and stealing second. Two walks, the second to Cam Mariani, drove in the insurance run.

Page 2 of 2 - When Whalen was done on the mound, Perakslis had another ace up his sleeve, bringing in Dwyer to close out the game. An infield ground out moved the Rockland runners to second and third and Dwyer hit Leavitt with a 3-2 pitch to load the bases before ending the game with an overpowering strikeout.

“Whalen and Dwyer are my 1 and 1-A pitchers,” Perakslis said.

In the two-run second inning, Whalen was hit by a pitch, took second on a wild pitch, moved to third on a ground out and scored on Vin Picardi’s single to center. Picardi stole second and scored on Scott Jansen’s single to left for a 2-0 lead.

“We competed for eight innings against a fundamentally sound team like Abington,” Liquori said. “We were down early and scrapped all the way. JT (Turner) did a good job after Matt (Nicholson) was walked to tie the game. If we compete like we did today, that gives us chances to win.”

Abington’s Jansen, the starting catcher, was bowled over on a play at the plate that ended the second inning. He tried to go back out for the third but was unable to do so. Quinlan came in from right field and finished the game behind the plate.

“That was a tough injury to Scott Jansen,” Perakslis said. “It was a good, clean baseball play by two teams that played the game hard.”